Dan Mott is a social selling coach with proven LinkedIn strategies that drive revenue. Dan shares his journey and expertise in transforming social interactions into tangible business outcomes. Key discussions include the misunderstood dynamics of LinkedIn, paralleling them humorously with teenage misconceptions, and the crucial role of personalization and authenticity in crafting a successful online presence.

Listeners gain actionable insights on avoiding common pitfalls and leveraging LinkedIn's complex environment to their advantage. Dan emphasizes the importance of a tailored approach, engaging content, and genuine interactions over automation to build lasting connections that drive business success.

Want to learn more about Dan Mott's work? Check out their website at https://six3media.com.

Connect with Dan Mott on LinkedIn at https://www.linkedin.com/in/dan-mott/.

Key Points with Timestamps:

• [00:00:43] Introduction of Dan Mott, social selling coach and LinkedIn expert.
• [00:01:15] Discussing the common misconceptions and ineffective strategies on LinkedIn.
• [00:03:51] Dan explains how Dungeons & Dragons has enhanced his creative skills, relevant to LinkedIn strategy.
• [00:09:24] Challenges experienced users face in adapting new, effective LinkedIn strategies.
• [00:14:05] Discussion on the risks and regulations of automation on LinkedIn.
• [00:23:00] Dan outlines the three essential systems for LinkedIn success: content, engagement, and prospecting.
• [00:39:14] Dan offers resources for deeper learning and effective LinkedIn strategies.

Transcript

00:00:07:24 - 00:00:43:12
Craig Andrews
Today I want to welcome Dan Mott. I learned about Dan through a buddy of mine named Matt, and I kept hearing about Dan and about how much he impacted the way people act on LinkedIn, how they how Dan influenced them. That changed their bottom line, drove more revenue because of what they learned about from Dan on LinkedIn. And so, Dan, obviously, we're going to talk about LinkedIn, but, he's a social selling coach for solopreneurs.

00:00:43:14 - 00:01:15:01
Craig Andrews
He's a creator of the manifest a million challenge and co-founder of marketing apps.com. And here's something that's really interesting. He runs a and networking group for nerdy entrepreneurs. So it sounds like social is just like in everything Dan does. And so I'm looking forward to this talk. You should listen in because you know what? One of the things I've seen Dan I talked about is like when people talked about LinkedIn, it's kind of like teenagers talking about sex.

00:01:15:01 - 00:01:32:22
Craig Andrews
Everybody says they're doing it. They're not doing it as much as they are, as I think as they say they are. And nobody's really that good at it. And Dan is good at it. And so listen in because you're going to walk away with some actionable things. They're going to make a difference to your LinkedIn strategy. Dan welcome.

00:01:32:24 - 00:01:35:02
Dan Mott
Thanks, Craig. It's great to be here.

00:01:35:04 - 00:01:51:18
Craig Andrews
So I, I got to start with the D and D I've never gotten d and d I just yeah I see you guys floating around I know you guys are passionate about it. I don't understand it. It's not my thing. What what do you do? What's what's this? Networking group. And tell me what happens there.

00:01:51:20 - 00:02:13:06
Dan Mott
Yeah. Okay. So there's going to be the rest of the episode. Everything else is out the door. Yeah. You start getting me talking about D and D I can't stop. yeah. I mean, it's, you know, it's been around since the 60s. 70s. we are on the fifth edition of the game, and actually, Wizards of the coast is looking to make the next iteration of it, but it's it's tabletop gaming.

00:02:13:06 - 00:02:25:09
Dan Mott
It's, you know, it's a way to play with the theater of the mind, and it's sharpened my creative skills so much over the past three years. It's it's incredible. Even just like Michael.

00:02:25:11 - 00:02:34:03
Craig Andrews
Let me pause it quick, because there's somebody else in there listening. There's like, I still don't know what DMD is or what is D and D.

00:02:34:05 - 00:02:37:05
Dan Mott
That's actually going to be the hardest question on this.

00:02:37:07 - 00:02:38:14
Craig Andrews
What's it stand for?

00:02:38:16 - 00:02:58:01
Dan Mott
So, D is stands for Dungeons and Dragons. you'll see it kind of like in throughout pop culture. I think, was a stranger. Stranger Things did a really good job of kind of like bringing it back, and it's, it's very much kind of on the rise again. Now, but it's it's what's called a tabletop roleplaying game.

00:02:58:01 - 00:03:34:05
Dan Mott
So it's like a video game without the screen. It's like a board game without the board. it is very much playing. It is the most open sandbox game you could ever play because you can literally come up with there's there's no limitations because there's no board, because there's no screen, because there's no programing. you can basically do whatever you want and there are rules, but, you can kind of make it up as you go, which it requires a, a dungeon master or a game master, which is my favorite role, to kind of, like, enforce the rules and play all the bad guys in the environment and everything that's happening.

00:03:34:05 - 00:03:51:03
Dan Mott
So, it's it's very, it's very much a collaborative experience, where you sit down with a couple friends around a table or I play virtually. So I do it right on zoom, and you set out on an adventure and try to go for whatever goal you're you're working on.

00:03:51:05 - 00:03:57:13
Craig Andrews
That's cool. When you say it's it's done more for your creativity with, help me understand that.

00:03:57:15 - 00:04:15:17
Dan Mott
So as a Dungeon Master, I am responsible for creating the game world. So I am working on my both my fourth and my fifth campaigns. I've done this a number of times. but I'm literally publishing a game, so I have to come up with there's kind of like the core engine rules, but I have to come up with the rules.

00:04:15:17 - 00:04:30:11
Dan Mott
I have to come up with the characters. I have to come up with, the progression systems. I have to come up with a story. I have to come up with a lot of different things that drives the engine. So in my players come to the game, they know who they're playing and what their mission is, and as they go in, they set out.

00:04:30:11 - 00:04:49:21
Dan Mott
In doing that, they have to interact with other bright non-playable characters, or they have to interact with the environments or creatures that are attacking them. so I have to run and manage all of those things, right? They just have to play one character. I literally have to play the entire world. All the bad guys, good guys that fill it.

00:04:49:23 - 00:05:02:02
Craig Andrews
And, you know, one of the things I've noticed, like I said, it's never been my thing. But the D&D folks, they find each other, they just kind of bond together. It seems like a very social IRL engagement. Yeah.

00:05:02:04 - 00:05:31:04
Dan Mott
So game sessions usually run about four hours long. So you sit at a table with 4 or 5, six people. and, you know, usually we're drinking and hanging out and having fun. Dick jokes. Dick jokes often come up and, you know, you're doing, like, random stupid things. we're literally crying from laughter in every single session just because of the ridiculousness that ensues.

00:05:31:06 - 00:05:49:12
Dan Mott
and there's always these elements of randomness because you're playing based on roles. So you either roll well, you roll poorly, and that's kind of how the story goes. And I have to dictate it accordingly. So you're drinking, you're having fun, you're playing a game, you're doing wild, outlandish, outrageous things. Where in a world where anything is possible.

00:05:49:14 - 00:06:16:21
Dan Mott
So it kind of creates this, this bond with people. you know, with I play with some of my closest friends, groomsmen, you know, who were in my, my wedding party, all the way up to people who I meet online and have a passion. And there's there's something that clicks within those first four hours where you create a bond for life because you just you had so much fun, and you, you got so creative and so vulnerable with them.

00:06:16:23 - 00:06:38:18
Dan Mott
you know, because it allows you to kind of like, you get to vicariously play through your characters, right? So you might play out things that are kind of like in your wildest imaginations. so you're very revealing of who you are and the type of person you are in those settings. And I think that's really what does the job of really helping to kind of bring that human element in, to be able to connect with other people on such a deep level, in such a short amount of time?

00:06:38:20 - 00:06:59:19
Craig Andrews
Yeah. So what happens? I mean, because this has to happen, you know, somebody who's never been part of D&D, they come in. I mean, if I went to that world, I would be just I'd feel completely lost. I'd feel like an oath. How does that work when somebody's not savvy in the ways comes in?

00:06:59:21 - 00:07:20:13
Dan Mott
So I always am looking. If someone hasn't played and I'm looking for some other prior criteria. how much gaming have you done in general, whether it's board gaming or video gaming or really anything else? how much are you into, like reading fantasy and movies and things like that? Because there's, there's a lot of crossover that you can kind of draw from.

00:07:20:15 - 00:07:37:03
Dan Mott
So as long as kind of there's those minimum requirements, it kind of showcases the someone's someone who's creative, someone who's kind of like open to, to trying this. And it's a little weird at first, like, right. Like I had to get drunk the first time I played because I was like, especially running the game. I was like, I was super nervous about it.

00:07:37:05 - 00:08:00:21
Dan Mott
So you come into the experience kind of not knowing what to do, but as long as you have other experiences that you can lean on and draw from, from like a fantasy perspective, it helps to kind of make the experience that much more immersive. I also start players off with an easier to pick up kind of game where it's just like, hey, here is your your first couple rules.

00:08:00:23 - 00:08:29:08
Dan Mott
this kind of dictates what you can do on a turn and anything else you want to do outside of that, just ask and I'll tell you like what's possible and how you can actually do it. So I try to create an environment that's very easy for people to kind of come into and learn along the way, because despite the fact that I've ran well over 100 sessions and every time I play, I still have to look up some rule or another, because there's there's so much that you can remember off the top of your head, but there's so much situational stuff that you need to go consult the rulebook and see what's physically possible

00:08:29:08 - 00:08:30:18
Dan Mott
or not.

00:08:30:20 - 00:08:42:21
Craig Andrews
So are there certain things that like, let's say I came in and I tried to join while your games and I came in, I did something that would be just a little bit inappropriate and you might ask me to leave.

00:08:42:23 - 00:08:44:22
Dan Mott
And probably wouldn't even.

00:08:44:24 - 00:08:45:12
Craig Andrews
Really.

00:08:45:17 - 00:09:07:18
Dan Mott
Yeah. We get very inappropriate. So out of the spore control. Right. So it's my campaigns and, my, my two friends who have also run other campaigns, in about 60% of them, at least someone's, dick has been removed, like, in combat. So,

00:09:07:20 - 00:09:24:07
Craig Andrews
But the reason and the reason this intrigues me is because I know we're here to talk about LinkedIn. You know, when you come into LinkedIn, there's a lot of people that come in. They come in with the wrong idea of what LinkedIn is about, and they start playing the game wrong.

00:09:24:09 - 00:09:42:21
Dan Mott
Yeah. Even people who've been playing the game for years. right. I think they have more of a hard time because they've been so conditioned into playing the game a certain way that they're less open to changing their mind and trying something new that might actually be more beneficial for them in the relationships they're building.

00:09:42:23 - 00:09:45:12
Craig Andrews
Interesting. What do you think?

00:09:45:14 - 00:09:46:11
Dan Mott
Sorry. Say it again.

00:09:46:13 - 00:09:50:17
Craig Andrews
What what what's an example?

00:09:50:19 - 00:10:08:20
Dan Mott
So. If you come in right. Like it's it's really just kind of habit forming in general. Like not just on LinkedIn but everywhere across the board. But if I come in and I am very used to this is the system I've created myself for myself and I've been doing it for years and years and years, I'm going to I'm going to stick to that.

00:10:08:20 - 00:10:25:18
Dan Mott
Right. So it might be like, this is the way that I create content, and I might be stuck in the way that I create content because I'm so used to doing it. But there might be one element in there that's holding me back, because I'm not willing to go and change that or remove it, right? I might be like personally stuck to it.

00:10:25:18 - 00:10:32:14
Dan Mott
Like, this is the way I always sign off, and maybe it pisses people off, or it's just kind of not like a best practice.

00:10:32:16 - 00:10:56:06
Craig Andrews
Yeah, well, and I guess let's go down a level lower in saying might have been on LinkedIn. I'm sure you get the the outreaches that I get. where somebody is just like, hey, I mean, I'm going to do some, some course. Translation. Hi, Craig. You look like you might be a customer of mine. You wouldn't connect.

00:10:56:08 - 00:11:03:15
Dan Mott
Yeah, the classic pitch slap. get them all the time.

00:11:03:17 - 00:11:31:23
Craig Andrews
Yeah. And, but, I mean, and this is where I see kind of the tie in to the D and D. Is there a rules of the game? I mean, and D&D is extremely complex. That's one thing I know about. It's extremely complex. I would say relative to Facebook, I find LinkedIn like ten times more complex than Facebook because the starting assumptions are all over the map.

00:11:32:00 - 00:11:51:22
Dan Mott
Yes. So in D&D there is the core, the core rulebook that says, like, here are the rules of play. And as the Dungeon Master, I can choose to use them or not. I can say like, hey, I'm going to change my rule. Like when we play my game. Yes, dad says this is the rule, but instead I'm going to make it my way.

00:11:51:24 - 00:12:06:19
Dan Mott
But then there's also a bunch of different rules that I have to make up that are situational or just specific to my campaign. So there are the written rules and the unwritten rules. And I think LinkedIn is the same way. Right? Like LinkedIn has. It's right. It's terms, it's policies. You have to kind of play by their rules.

00:12:06:19 - 00:12:23:00
Dan Mott
When you come on to their platform. don't use automation, don't participate in pods, all the kind of just like line items that they have in their legal documents that most people honestly don't know. Same thing. Right? Like, I don't know all the rules and the and the D&D rulebook. I only go look them up when I, when I absolutely need to.

00:12:23:02 - 00:12:25:09
Craig Andrews
What are pods?

00:12:25:11 - 00:12:52:12
Dan Mott
pods are a group of people who want to elevate each other, but they do so with the sole purpose of. Just like you. Like my post, and I'll like your post and you comment on my post and I'll comment on your post. So that way we get artificial engagement that's created out of it. So like they're not going into like had like this person and I want to go engage with them and support them and network with them and collaborate with them.

00:12:52:14 - 00:13:17:02
Dan Mott
a lot. Like they can either be free or paid, but like people like group up together and they're just like, hey, let's just go like spam, like support each other. but a lot of times it's like art. It's artificial, it's bad. Comments. It's it's fake. So, LinkedIn propose it. And there's a lot of people I'm kind of indifferent about it, but there's a lot of people who, like, make a pretty big kind of stink about it on LinkedIn.

00:13:17:04 - 00:13:20:07
Craig Andrews
Yeah. And what's automation?

00:13:20:09 - 00:13:49:00
Dan Mott
Automation is, which is really funny too, because marketing in general uses automation in basically every other platform. You know, automation is perfectly accepted. And, and normal. but on LinkedIn, you can use automation tools to send DMs or like or, you can do it in a lot of different ways, right? Like you can send DMs, you can send connect requests, you can, like, what's what's the thing where you like, basically say, like, this person is good at this particular skill, right?

00:13:49:00 - 00:14:05:02
Dan Mott
So you're kind of like automating the, the engagement and the interaction with other members. And LinkedIn does not approve of that. And, if they find that you're using automation they like that's in their policies, they'll actually like turn your account off or penalize you or something like that.

00:14:05:04 - 00:14:22:06
Craig Andrews
you know, and I run into a lot of people that say, oh, I've got a guy. He's got like some special software. He plugs in and it does all these things. It's great. I don't know what he's doing, but hey, wow, it's really increased my followers. What would you say to them?

00:14:22:08 - 00:14:44:02
Dan Mott
I used to do that. so I used to use meat out for it. I used to use octopus. I used to use, duck soup and a bunch of others. And it was the same thing. Right. And and it's. Here's my stance on it. Right? Like automation as a tool is perfectly fine. LinkedIn disagrees with that. it's really about the way in which you use automation, which 90% of the people, and especially on LinkedIn, use it wrong, right?

00:14:44:02 - 00:15:02:14
Dan Mott
They go out and they spam people. They pull lists from LinkedIn Sales Navigator that are not really accurate or hyper custom specific to those people, and they just blast spam messages to everyone. And it's kind of the spray and pray approach where they send out 200 connection requests and get like a handful of responses from it.

00:15:02:16 - 00:15:30:09
Craig Andrews
You know? Yeah. And, you know, it's funny, I've had LinkedIn. They actually I went through a period where they just kept showing my account down or they would lock me on my account. Yeah. And I was like the only automation I'm using, I'm using HubSpot, which is, is through your authorized API. And I'm using, Shield analytics, which you guys have listed on your website as a tool to use.

00:15:30:09 - 00:15:56:22
Craig Andrews
I'm not using any other automation. And I was like, and you guys are threatening to shut down my account. And it's terrifying because today, I mean, when I graduated from college, you know, I had make a resume, you know, when I when, you know, whenever I change jobs, I'd make a resume. But that was a, that was a word document that I'd save as a PDF and, and upload today your resume is LinkedIn.

00:15:56:24 - 00:15:59:21
Craig Andrews
Do you lose your LinkedIn account? That's a huge deal.

00:15:59:23 - 00:16:20:19
Dan Mott
Yeah. And it's your connection to your network, all those relationships. Right. Like you better hope that you have their email. You're connected to them on another social platform because otherwise you have to remember everyone who was in your network can go find them elsewhere. So yeah, it's it's it's, You know, it's the difference between kind of like, right.

00:16:20:19 - 00:16:43:12
Dan Mott
Owned and rented media. Right? Like you're playing by their rules, you're on their platform, they can pull the rug out from you at any time. And you're sol, right? There's there's not much you can do about it. And they're pretty quick to like, push people over, and kind of like, temporarily shut their account down. You have to go through quite a bit to like, get permanently shut down, but they'll temporarily, temporarily shut you down.

00:16:43:14 - 00:17:03:03
Dan Mott
you can, like, appeal it. But what's really ironic and funny about the entire process is they automate that themselves. So they're just looking for red flags that are happening. And it's basically like bots and things that are crawling LinkedIn to say like, all right, this person's opening up too many tabs too fast, right? So like you can actually go trigger those flags by not using automation.

00:17:03:03 - 00:17:16:21
Dan Mott
Like I can sit here and I can just open LinkedIn, copy and then paste and paste and paste and paste and paste the same URL over and over again in a new tab. And I'll get flagged. So it's like, you know, they're just using automation to say like, all right, red flag. This person's potentially using automation looks temporary.

00:17:17:01 - 00:17:18:13
Dan Mott
Temporarily shut them down.

00:17:18:14 - 00:17:48:17
Craig Andrews
So know. So the you know from my own social journey the for years I wouldn't use Facebook for business. You know I just and a lot of it was I just didn't understand it. And I was like you know people people don't want don't care about me and my, you know, loud ad that saying, buy my crap. you know, they're going to Facebook, you know, for other reasons.

00:17:48:19 - 00:18:13:21
Craig Andrews
And I had somebody come to me and he said, Craig, the key is people go to Facebook to read stories about people. And once I understood that concept, I started writing ads that were stories about people. And the ads work insanely well. And and for the haters out there, yes, you can draw B2B leads on Facebook there, on there.

00:18:13:23 - 00:18:22:01
Craig Andrews
People in business are on Facebook, just like people are on business. Watch TV at night and you can run TV ads to them.

00:18:22:03 - 00:18:25:08
Dan Mott
But any channel that has attention you can get leads from.

00:18:25:10 - 00:18:49:13
Craig Andrews
Yeah, exactly. But here's where I'm struggling. I'll just be honest, Dan, I do not have it figured out. I'm a little bit insecure about this LinkedIn. I haven't cracked the code and I put I've put more hours than count into it and I've I've stayed your stuff. I still feel like I'm missing something, but when I try and finish that sentence, people go on Facebook to read stories about people.

00:18:49:13 - 00:19:11:14
Craig Andrews
When I change it to people, go to LinkedIn to, I come up with a few things. People go to LinkedIn and find their next job. People go to LinkedIn to find their next employee. People go to LinkedIn to find their next customer and people go to LinkedIn to find their next network partner. And there may be more and those may be right, those may be wrong.

00:19:11:16 - 00:19:29:07
Craig Andrews
But the challenge I'm having is finding the context to create that introduction on Facebook. I just need to tell a story about people, and I'll get their attention. As long as they see themselves in the story, they'll come in. I haven't figured that on on LinkedIn.

00:19:29:09 - 00:19:51:01
Dan Mott
Yeah. and I don't know that it changes that much because storytelling is an extremely powerful tool. It's not the only one. Right. There's there's certainly other kind of VR content. There's a lot of other strategies that you can use to kind of get people's attention and get them interested. I don't know if people feel less comfortable, right.

00:19:51:01 - 00:20:11:11
Dan Mott
Because they're very much people go to any other social platform for a multitude of reasons, right? Like it could be professional, it could be personal. It could be like, what am I cooking tonight? Okay. People come to linked in with a specific business mindset, right? Like whether it is to apply for a job or find a customer, find a collaborator, partner, things like that.

00:20:11:13 - 00:20:41:23
Dan Mott
it is it's not kind of like open up to all areas of their life. It is somehow channeled through a business mindset. So there is kind of like that, that differentiate. So when people come in, they may be less comfortable to engage in content, which is why, like you hear the term lurkers, people who will scroll feed, they never like or comment on your posts, but they've been eventually like they'll reach out to you and say like, hey, been following you for years and you're like, I've never even heard of you.

00:20:42:00 - 00:20:43:15
Dan Mott
So like.

00:20:43:17 - 00:21:03:19
Craig Andrews
You know, what ticks me off is when I have I have some people that they'll tell me they're like, Craig, you do the best posts. I love your posts. I'm sitting there thinking, then why haven't you liked them? I mean, these aren't strangers. These are people that know me. Yeah, I'm like, just click that like button. I mean, if you're feeling bold, leave a comment.

00:21:03:21 - 00:21:04:16
Craig Andrews
Yeah.

00:21:04:18 - 00:21:24:13
Dan Mott
It's, it's purely psychological, right? I think that's like the, that's like probably the one downside of, of LinkedIn being professionally focused is like, I think I think there's a lot of people out there who are less likely to read the they'll gladly kind of go on Facebook or Instagram or any other social platform and comment on their friends posts and stuff like that.

00:21:24:13 - 00:21:41:19
Dan Mott
I think they feel a lot more comfortable doing so, but people kind of feel like, all right, I need to engage on this and I need to if I'm going to come in, if I'm going to talk about something, I need to kind of like bring my expertise. And then I feel like I'm putting myself out there. It just feels like a lot a bigger hurdle for people, and especially when they're getting started.

00:21:41:19 - 00:21:56:14
Dan Mott
Right. Once you immerse yourself in you do it. You get used to it, you condition yourself to it. It becomes a lot easier. But it's that initial hurdle of getting over. and that's why so many people just sit there and just scroll and consume content and don't actually even get to your point. As simple as this, it's just like one thumb, like, hit that button.

00:21:56:19 - 00:22:06:19
Dan Mott
Help me out. Support me. We're friends. it's. They don't even. They're not even thinking about it that way. They're just like, this is awesome. But they keep scrolling because they're so conditioned not to like and comment.

00:22:06:21 - 00:22:08:11
Craig Andrews
Wow, do you actually do.

00:22:08:11 - 00:22:14:22
Dan Mott
That on Instagram? Which is really like, I don't use it anymore. But when I did, I was very much a scroller and I never engaged on anything.

00:22:14:24 - 00:22:19:00
Craig Andrews
You have any tips for changing that behavior through what you post?

00:22:19:02 - 00:22:42:07
Dan Mott
You you have to. So regardless of the post itself, what I would say is you have to be proactive about reaching out to people, right? So like just because people don't comment in public doesn't mean that they're not. They still might log in every single day, and they're still more than happy to have a conversation in the DMs, especially if you're going to be the one to initiate it.

00:22:42:09 - 00:23:00:04
Dan Mott
So I would say there's three primary systems that you need to be successful on LinkedIn. If your goal is to build relationships with people in any capacity, right. Like I want investors, I want clients, I want to find employees, I want to find collaborators, partners, whatever. You need to have those three systems to be able to build those relationships.

00:23:00:04 - 00:23:15:24
Dan Mott
The first is content. So, right, like I need to regularly post content. Anyone need to know what I'm going to talk about, how I'm going to structure my post and everything. You need to have an engagement strategy. So right. If people reply right, people comment on my posts, I want to reply to them. But also who else in my network or am I going to go engage with?

00:23:15:24 - 00:23:36:02
Dan Mott
How many comments am I going to post? Or, you know, like publish each week on who's posts and I think most people have those two systems. If they're active on LinkedIn, they have those systems figured out. The third system that most people don't have is a prospecting system. All right. Well, how am I going to out of all these people who are engaging in my content in any level, how am I going to start a conversation with them?

00:23:36:02 - 00:23:43:19
Dan Mott
How am I going to track and manage those conversations to ensure that they actually move through my pipeline and result in an opportunity?

00:23:43:21 - 00:23:50:17
Craig Andrews
And what would you recommend to them? Those are missing that third piece.

00:23:50:19 - 00:24:10:22
Dan Mott
The most important part is it's a habit. It's a muscle you need to have a system and you need to practice it. So even if it's like as simple as possible, right. Like the first thing I would do is one day a week, put a 30 minute block on your calendar that says prospect. And the first day, go figure out what you're going to do for the next week to week.

00:24:10:22 - 00:24:28:11
Dan Mott
Beyond that, we can certainly kind of talk about what things to put in there, but right, like it's it's going through and saying, right, well, who are leads for me? Who do I want to sit down and talk to? Right. Well, I need to go message those people. I need to go send connect requests. are people sending me connection requests or people viewing my profile?

00:24:28:11 - 00:24:46:14
Dan Mott
Are they commenting on my posts? It seems like the obvious thing to go accept those connection requests and reply to those comments. But the next step beyond that is to okay, well go send them a DM and keep the conversation going because now you can get to know them better. You can start to build that relationship. That relationship turns into a conversation you have on a call with them.

00:24:46:18 - 00:25:13:12
Dan Mott
And then all of a sudden you can start to qualify and pull them into your funnel from there. So, so having this structure, knowing like I have time dedicated my goal on this in a 30 minute block is to message five new people, start new conversations, and that takes me about half that time. The rest of the time, I'm going to go in and I'm going to respond to my DMs, people who have messaged me back, and then if I still have time or if I want to keep going, I'm going to say, all right, well, I was tracking everyone that I talked to.

00:25:13:12 - 00:25:29:00
Dan Mott
So who didn't respond to me, do I need to follow up with any of those people? So having a system in place to make sure that you are starting new conversations and following up on those conversations to actually right, like, are they progressing? Are they moving forward? Did did I drop the ball? Did I forget to send my booking link?

00:25:29:00 - 00:25:37:02
Dan Mott
Or did they not respond even though they said like, yes, I love to talk to you. I want to make sure I just send a friendly reminder to make sure that actually happens.

00:25:37:04 - 00:25:50:17
Craig Andrews
And, and these outreaches again, you know, we all get these endless emails or these, DMs of, hey, you look like my ideal client. One connect.

00:25:50:19 - 00:25:52:09
Dan Mott
Definitely don't send that. Yeah.

00:25:52:09 - 00:26:09:17
Craig Andrews
So yeah. Or some version of that. You know, some people think, oh, I'm really smooth. They'll never know what I'm saying. I'm like, no, they know what you're saying. So how do you reach out to an audience that's always skeptical of people reaching out to them to actually get them to engage?

00:26:09:19 - 00:26:32:20
Dan Mott
Yeah. So there's there's a couple of things. the first thing I'm looking for is I'm looking for, like, a warm hand raise. Right. So the reason I consider something cold is if I'm the person to initiate. Right? Like, if I find someone on a list, this is someone I want to reach out to, and they've never heard of me, or they haven't seen my content or anything like that, that's purely cold.

00:26:32:22 - 00:26:55:12
Dan Mott
But if someone is already commenting on my post, if someone's already sending me a connection request for someone is viewing my profile right there, at least within the past 2430 six hours, like familiar with me or my content. So that is an opportunity for me to just start that right. Like progress the conversation, even though which it might just been like as simple as like I went to go check out Dan's profile, right.

00:26:55:14 - 00:27:16:23
Dan Mott
If you saw a message from me 24 hours later versus right, like you'd be more likely to respond to that message than you would to someone who whose profile you didn't view and they just reached out to you purely cold. So that's the first thing, right? Like I'm looking for warm leads. I'm looking for people who have actually seen me or my content within the past like couple days, because that gives me a leg up because they're already familiar with who I am.

00:27:16:23 - 00:27:38:17
Dan Mott
It's not like I'm some complete stranger reaching out to them. You know? The second thing is, is how you bridge that conversation. So you need to have some sort of icebreaker or some sort of common thread that that ties you together, some sort of common interest. So if you look at my profile, there's a reason why I put Dungeon Master and D&D in my tagline.

00:27:38:17 - 00:28:02:23
Dan Mott
If you look at my profile summary and scroll down to the bottom, there's like a bunch of common. Like, here are the things that I'm passionate about. Here's the things that I care about. So this is me proactively saying like, here's the things that I like, right? Like I obviously talk about LinkedIn and social selling. I talk about community and relationship building through my content, but I also share a lot of other things that are non-business related, because I want people to.

00:28:03:00 - 00:28:20:24
Dan Mott
I just need one thing, one thing that we can connect on, right? Like the amount of people who reach out to me and say, like, I love the indie, or I love video games, or I love doing or I love this starts a conversation and it starts a conversation in a way that is very conversational, right? Like it's not like, hey, here's my wares, buy my shit.

00:28:21:01 - 00:28:30:04
Dan Mott
And it's like, hey, you're a human. I see you like this. I like that too. And that is the easiest way to start a conversation with anyone.

00:28:30:06 - 00:28:58:10
Craig Andrews
Yeah, yeah. And, you know, a type of outreach that I've been doing recently that, you know, lines up. I'm I'm looking, you know, I'm doing some explorations in the medical space. one because I want to help. I want to help businesses that are bringing needed change to health care. Yeah. And I have a compelling reason for that.

00:28:58:10 - 00:29:27:11
Craig Andrews
You know, the I have a I have a have a big scar across my upper lip that was decorated by the hospital, when when, you know, they giving me up for dead and, you know, so I have a passion behind that. And so it's kind of that common bond where I'm able to create these connections, but it's it's rooted in a genuine desire to help people that are bringing their fix in the broken health care.

00:29:27:13 - 00:29:30:12
Craig Andrews
do you know, do you know Justin Leader?

00:29:30:14 - 00:29:31:03
Dan Mott
I don't believe so.

00:29:31:03 - 00:29:57:10
Craig Andrews
No. Okay. He's. I met him through Matt, who's a mutual contact of ours. And Justin's just one of these people. It's really neat when you meet these people. They're insanely busy because they have a sense of urgency. That's over. The top of this is broken. We've got to fix it. Yeah. And. And so I'm reaching out and connecting with them because I want more of these type of people in my life.

00:29:57:12 - 00:30:21:17
Craig Andrews
Yeah. But surround this common bond of I almost died. I mean, I, you know, spent you know, I didn't spend but you know, I racked up a couple million dollars in hotel and, hospital bills and nearly died. And from the inside, I got to see the brokenness of the system. And if for no other reason, I wouldn't cheer for the folks that are doing things to change the brokenness.

00:30:21:19 - 00:30:42:17
Dan Mott
Yeah, yeah. And it's it's that fiery passion inside that makes it easy to connect with other people, especially when they share it too, or they're seeing it day in and day out. Right? Like if they're working in the in the system, it's that is something that they can't. Right. Like it's very easy for someone to be like another cold patch on my DMs.

00:30:42:17 - 00:31:03:03
Dan Mott
Right. Like you don't even finish reading it. You move on. It's easy for you to to lay to the side, but if there's something that lights you up, that kind of fires you up, that gets you excited or passionate. When someone right like drops that 1 or 2 words, you can't help but respond, right? Like. And even if you don't have time in the moment, it sits in the back of your head and you want to get back to them.

00:31:03:05 - 00:31:21:11
Dan Mott
So it's about finding that common interest, that common thread that you can pull on, because a conversation is not a conversation until the other person responds. So your first initial goal is always to get the person to respond. And you do that by finding some sort of common interest. And the more that they're passionate about it, the more likely they are to respond.

00:31:21:13 - 00:31:42:19
Craig Andrews
Yeah. So what do you think about outsourcing that? Because I, I have, people that approach me and say, hey, Craig, we'll run your LinkedIn strategy. I just need to interview you. You know, one day, you know, an hour a week or a couple hours a month, and you just sit back. You you wait for the business to show up.

00:31:42:21 - 00:31:49:18
Craig Andrews
I'm I'm going to do all of your LinkedIn posts. I'll drive your engagement. What do you think about that?

00:31:49:20 - 00:32:09:00
Dan Mott
So if it's content, I think it works fine as long as you are the source of the content. That's all it really matters, right? So, like, I can after this recording, I can take this content, I can go give it to my VA and he can clip it up and take video content, and he can write, like, here's the clip.

00:32:09:00 - 00:32:28:13
Dan Mott
He can even like, listen to the clip, listen to the rest of the episode, and actually probably draft some good copy that goes along with it and post it on my behalf. The problem where outsourcing, where outsourced outsourcing becomes a problem, is really around the conversational piece. Because you can't fake that, you can't fake that human connection. Right.

00:32:28:13 - 00:32:53:07
Dan Mott
And I've I've actually tried to do this back in like the early days of my business. I actually did do this for other people. And I figured out like a good system, like, here's certain questions that you can ask and things like that that I like distilled from having that conversation with that person. Okay. Tell me more about your business model, like through the process of discovery, I could understand what questions do I need to ask to move someone from stranger to had like to meet you and get to like book a call with you?

00:32:53:09 - 00:33:15:03
Dan Mott
The thing is, like, I was actually working with a doctor at the time who was building a like software solution, and only so much of that conversation could land, because I couldn't speak to his personal experiences of going through med school and right, his experience of working late nights and some of like the, the like the patients that he had along the way.

00:33:15:03 - 00:33:38:19
Dan Mott
Right. Like there's there's a lot of those intangible things that you're pulling from your subconscious memory that you might not be remembered for years, but someone brought something up and it's just like, boom, that's the top of my head. That's how I relate to this person. So content, as long as you were the source, I think can be outsourced and repurposed to help you kind of scale your efforts as a creator, but conversationally it becomes extremely difficult.

00:33:38:21 - 00:33:57:03
Dan Mott
I would have like a VA start conversations for me, but then like, right, like I can have like a boilerplate, right? Like I even give templates in, in my free guide, right? Like go start conversations with people here and copy and paste this and go copy this, paste this into this place that starts the conversation. But every conversation is like a snowflake.

00:33:57:03 - 00:34:06:15
Dan Mott
You never really know where it's going to go next. So you kind of need to lean into your own personal experiences to be able to carry that forward. Yeah, in my personal opinion.

00:34:06:17 - 00:34:31:06
Craig Andrews
Yeah. Well, and one of the things that you said earlier that I've seen that there are a lot of people watching what you're doing on LinkedIn that never respond. And the one that surprised me the most is a former colleague. We worked together. We worked together 25 years ago. And then when I changed jobs, she was a, customer.

00:34:31:06 - 00:34:52:01
Craig Andrews
But last time we talk was over 20 years ago. Yeah. And last year I published two books. One of them about, you know, my wife and I co wrote about my journey with Covid through the hospital and she comments on the post saying, Craig, I just bought your book. She lives in Sweden. Yes, I got an international sale.

00:34:52:06 - 00:34:53:22
Dan Mott
Nice.

00:34:53:24 - 00:35:17:02
Craig Andrews
And that's the first time I'd heard from her in over 20 years. Yep. And I realize, oh, there's people saying this content, they have no idea and made a book sale, made a whopping $0.67 off me. But, yeah. And I think that's important to remember is there are people that are watching it and not engaging.

00:35:17:03 - 00:35:51:14
Dan Mott
Yes, very much so. A lot of them, right. Like you'll see kind of, you'll see the usual suspects, your friends or collaborators, partners who will show up for you often and they're great. But there's also a lot of people who are seeing you consistently, regularly and who are not engaged. And that's why, from an outreach perspective, profile views are really good because rather than wait those 20 years for that person to say, like, hey, I've been following your post and I just bought your book, they're not going to like your post, they're not going to comment on their post, but occasionally they will come check out your profile, because that's a very

00:35:51:14 - 00:36:06:17
Dan Mott
low barrier thing for them to do. but the trick is you can see that they're doing that, and you can use that as like the impetus to start the conversation and be like, hey, holy shit. Like your name just popped up. I haven't talked to you in years. Like, what's going on? How you been? Right. And now you're into the conversation from there?

00:36:06:19 - 00:36:32:04
Craig Andrews
Yeah. You know something else I'm saying. And we'll probably have to wrap up here in a second. But something else I've seen, I think this is important to touch on. I've seen some comments on my post. It's not like 1 or 2 sentences. It's an entire paragraph. Yeah. And I read through the entire paragraph and it's accurate. It's contextual.

00:36:32:06 - 00:36:41:14
Craig Andrews
But it's missing a certain warmth. As I look, I was like, I think that was written by an I.

00:36:41:16 - 00:36:43:07
Dan Mott
Likely, yeah.

00:36:43:09 - 00:36:44:09
Craig Andrews
And it hits me.

00:36:44:09 - 00:36:48:07
Dan Mott
I was like a lot of content. They read my I read it, I'm like.

00:36:48:09 - 00:37:19:20
Craig Andrews
I think people are using AI to like, comment on posts to kind of expand their, their efforts and the feelings. And I'm interested in your take on this, the feelings I feel when I see them like, okay, thank you for coming on my post because hopefully that helps drive engagement. I appreciate that, sincerely. Thank you. But I don't feel like you wrote it, and I don't feel more connected to you as a result of that comment.

00:37:19:22 - 00:37:20:23
Craig Andrews
Yeah.

00:37:21:00 - 00:37:40:08
Dan Mott
And that's the important part. Is the feeling. Right. Like that is what social selling is all about. It's about the relationship. It's about the rapport. It's about the mutual connection that you have and that feeling of like disconnectedness because they're using tools or same thing going back to like using a VA or someone else who's going to outsource that conversation.

00:37:40:10 - 00:37:52:12
Dan Mott
Like that's the part you can't fake. You can create, you can scale content, but you can't scale conversations. You can't scale relationships because the moment that you do, they feel disingenuous. As.

00:37:52:14 - 00:38:05:24
Craig Andrews
I can't think of a better way to end. There's such a powerful point. It's about creating connection. Then you have some tools for people. Yeah. Where are the tools and how do they get them?

00:38:06:01 - 00:38:26:12
Dan Mott
Yeah. You bet. come to my LinkedIn profile. that is the best place to find me. just I think it's Dan Mont. or, you know, you can find me. I have a free guide on my LinkedIn profile where it basically says, here are the three best places to find leads. We've already talked about them on today's call.

00:38:26:12 - 00:38:45:22
Dan Mott
It is your people are commenting on your post, people who are sending you connection requests and people who are, viewing your profile. I walk you through kind of step by step process on how to actually engage them and I even provide templates on here's what to say just to get the conversation started. So that's a good way to just build that kind of prospecting muscle, right.

00:38:45:23 - 00:39:14:00
Dan Mott
Schedule time on your calendar. Go download the guide and just follow it through step by step to start more conversations with people who are who would be potential clients or whatever you're looking for. I also do teach all of my social selling frameworks, through a course, the LinkedIn social selling playbook. So if you really want to dive deep into building out an entire prospecting system and sales process for your business that uses LinkedIn as the engine for that, you can find all that stuff right in there.

00:39:14:02 - 00:39:35:02
Craig Andrews
Well, that's awesome, Dan and I do hope people will reach out to you. I know the content that I've gotten from you, has been powerful to me. You're clearly one of the the masters on LinkedIn. And, and I know that because of the number of people that told me how you've changed their business through your coaching.

00:39:35:04 - 00:39:38:01
Craig Andrews
So thanks for sharing that here on Leaders and Legacies.

00:39:38:03 - 00:39:57:19
Dan Mott
Yeah. You bet. My pleasure. And quick before we go, I think it's funny too because right. Like I am not what you would consider a like. And for those who are listening, I'm quoting this traditional influencer. Right. the people who have hundreds of thousands of followers and, you know, a bazillion comments on every single post, I'm here to say you don't need that, right?

00:39:57:19 - 00:40:17:16
Dan Mott
Those people have a lot of engagement, but they're not always the best at converting it into actual paying clients and business opportunities. It really only takes a handful of comments. I'd say like ten comments or more on a post to start the conversations that you need to to generate opportunity for yourself and your network. So it doesn't take much.

00:40:17:16 - 00:40:24:07
Dan Mott
Just go out there and do the work, build relationships, and just be a genuine human and you'll have success to.

00:40:24:09 - 00:40:26:09
Craig Andrews
That's awesome. Thank you.

00:40:26:11 - 00:40:27:03
Dan Mott
Thanks for having Greg.